Focus Areas
MassCEC prioritizes funding and investments in these areas:
High Performance Buildings
MassCEC accelerates the most impactful, resilient and cost-effective electrification technologies and approaches to decarbonizing the building sector.
Techstyle Materials (Catalyst - May 2019)
Developed a prototype of its “smart drywall material”, which passively manages flows of heat and water vapor in order to increase energy efficiency, comfort, and durability of the building envelope.
MIT / Wang (now Aeroshield) (Catalyst - May 2019)
Dr. Evelyn Wang and Dr. Elise Strobach developed a clear, insulating, low-cost
silica aerogel that is for high-performance, energy efficient windows.
Heat Pump Control Co (Catalyst - May 2019)
Designed a prototype of its integrated smart heat pump control to easily retrofit water source heat pumps in homes as a supplement to legacy hydronic-based heating systems.
Clean Transportation
MassCEC fosters the development of cutting-edge, clean transportation technologies, enables new finance and business models that address the market barriers to electric vehicle deployment and accelerates the growth of clean transportation companies in Massachusetts.
Multiscale (Catalyst - January 2019)
Developed a new class of vehicle material designs (known as MetaCORE) that are intended to reduce the weight of vehicle components and increase fuel mileage. The materials, which are flat and plate-like, are primarily suited for heavy-duty vehicles such as box trucks.
UMass Lowell - Renewables from Biomass (AmplifyMass - March 2019)
Dr. John Hunter Mack converted sawmill residues into a bio-oil, which could then be blended with diesel fuel to enable a lower-carbon alternative for transportation modes such as those in aerospace, heavy-duty freight trucks, or freight ships.
IVYS (InnovateMass - 2017)
Deployed a vehicle charging station that incorporates both a fuel cell electric vehicle refueling station and an electric vehicle charging station with a solar array and a battery energy storage system. This system facilitates zero-emission mobility.
Net-Zero Grid
MassCEC supports technologies that enable a transition to a modernized and smarter grid, such as microgrids and energy storage, and demonstrates innovative business models and market development policies for delivering resilience, risk management, and clean energy.
WPI / Eversource (AmplifyMass - December 2019)
Dr. Maqsood Ali Mughal created a cost-saving model that can be embedded into an electric utility's existing tools to provide both on-site and remote access to real-time data related to PV output power, voltage fluctuation, and other sources of power quality issues.
Gridtwin (Catalyst - January 2019)
Engineered its software product that calculates predicted interconnection cost and impact for distributed renewable energy generation.
Heila (InnovateMass - 2018)
Developed an optimization hardware and software solution to enable more sophisticated control of distributed energy resources (DER), while reducing costs of integrating renewables with a microgrid.
Offshore Wind
MassCEC works to ensure the economic development opportunities of this growing industry, including training a workforce to meet the industry’s specialized needs and ensuring supply chain opportunities are available for Massachusetts’ businesses, are met.
Tufts - Block Island & CF (AmplifyMass - March 2019)
Two projects led by Dr. Babak Moaveni and Dr. Dan Kuchma aimed to develop the first public data set related to the structural performance of offshore wind support structures, and the first set of international guidelines for ensuring sufficient and predictable corrosion and fatigue performance of offshore wind support structures.
Tagup (AmplifyMass - November 2019)
Used cost-saving, predictive analytics to monitor the health of systems-critical offshore wind assets to better plan preventative maintenance replacements of such assets.